Three Essential Skills to Make Use of Home Computer Business Opportunities

Home computer business opportunities are easy to come by but making use of them is slightly more difficult. Having a fairly recent computer model and speedy Internet connection would be a start but if you want your future business to be profitable, you'll need more than hardware to achieve success.

What You Need

A person needs certain skills before he can make full use of any home computer business opportunity that comes his way. To help you get started, here are several essential skills you need to learn and practice as early as you can.

Internet Research

Contrary to popular opinion, surfing the Internet is not just a simple find-and-click procedure. Indeed, net surfing can be considered an art as it takes talent and experience to find your way to the exact type of information you need in the shortest time possible.

Home computer business opportunities are just what they say they are: opportunities. They offer you a chance to make money, but you need to know what to do with them to make chance turn into profit.

Internet research will help you in your goal. You need quick and effective Internet research skills if you want to be updated with your target market and stay a step ahead of your competition at the same time. Effective Internet research will let you pioneer online marketing trends rather than blindly following them.

HTML

Knowing your way around the Web is just the first step. The next thing you need to focus on is learning how to create your own space in the Internet, and that's when HTML knowledge becomes desirable.

While you certainly have no need to memorize HTML tags - what are wizard options and free ready-made templates for if not that - you do need to understand which tags are appropriate to use to make your presence felt in the Internet.

Although HTML is inferior to other computer languages like CSS and ASP in many ways, it is, however, still the preferred language of search engine spiders and when you've spent enough time managing your online business, you'll understand that what search engine spiders think matters the most.

Most website-making tools available online offer ready-made HTML templates to their users. You are also permitted to change them, and change them you have to but you can only do that with basic HTML know-how. Learning HTML is easy and even free at certain times. If you're good with self-learning, there are a lot of free articles and tutorials available online. You can, however, choose to enroll in online crash courses and learn from the pros.

Search Engine Optimization

Internet research skills let you understand what's going on with your competition and the target market. HTML gives you the means of communicating with search engine spiders. Search engine optimization, however, teaches you the right things to "say" to spiders and make your website #1 in your category.

Search engine optimization is probably the most difficult of all three skills to learn simply because it's dynamic and comprehensive. It touches almost every aspect there is to e-commerce and what you know now may be considered obsolete next week. Without SEO, even the most promising home computer business opportunities will come to nothing.

SEO improves the quality of a blog, website, or any online tool to match the requirements of search engines and consequently generate more traffic. There are two types of techniques used in SEO: white hat and black hat SEO. White hat is all that's good and harmless while SEO black hat techniques are considered unethical by many.

Keywords are an essential part of all SEO techniques. Key words or key phrases are words that best describe the website being promoted. Generally speaking, using keywords often will increase the website's chances of getting a higher page ranking from search engines.

White hat SEO techniques will strategically include keywords in the main and secondary titles, the first and last paragraph, as well as any other instance its use will be merited. Black hat SEO techniques, however, will use any means possible to use the keywords, regardless of how it can cause quality to deteriorate or the need for deceiving readers about their purpose.

Invest your time, money, and effort in learning these three essential skills and you'll have the ultimate means of making of the Home Computer Business Opportunities that you may want to consider. For more information, do research online, and ask your friends for advice. Soon, you will be making the money that you want and need, and you will have the Online Marketing Business Opportunity of your dreams.

Sam Schneider is an expert in home based businesses and internet marketing. He owns several successful on-line businesses and helps other entrepreneurs fulfill their dreams through coaching and mentoring. His sites are full of great ideas about earning a decent living online.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sam_Schneider

10 Most Useful Free Google Marketing Tools

By Titus Hoskins

Google is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Happy Birthday Google!

One way Google is celebrating this event is through funding 10 million dollars for the idea that can help the most people. An idea that could have the most impact on our world.

It's an ingenious way to celebrate Google and what it stands for... a birthday gift to everyone.

You can find out more about Google Impact Project here: 10 to the 100

Google Has Already Impacted Many People

Like a lot of webmasters and marketers out there, I am very grateful to Google. Mainly because Google has been very good to me and has made my online livelihood possible with organic rankings, Adsense revenue, Adwords...

Maybe I could have done it without Google, but it would have been a much more difficult job. And it's very hard to imagine a world without Google.

It's also hard to believe Google has only been around for 10 years... it has made all the difference to my onlíne marketing. I have used Google and Google Tools every day for the last six or seven years.

And it seems Google is only getting stronger and better. The new Google Chrome browser will only add to the long líst of Google's helpful offerings to the public.

With this thought in mind, here is my (biased) líst of the most 10 useful marketing tools Google has produced.

10 Most Valuable Free Google Marketing Tools

Google has become the dominant search engine on the Internet. It would be hard to imagine a web without Google. For that matter, it would now be hard to imagine a world without Google. As frightening as that may seem to many people, it is none the less true.

For better or worse, Google has permeated into almost every aspect of our everyday life. Being Googled is now a common expression and an act carried out by millions of users around the world each day. New Google products and services are coming on stream at a staggering pace, further increasing Google's impact on our lives.

Despite this dominating presence, many people still don't realize Google offers some excellent free marketing tools for marketers and webmasters. Marketing tools which can prove extremely valuable to any webmaster or marketer trying to promote their sites or products online. Useful tools that will make your promotions easier and much more profitable.

Don't be fooled by the 'free' label, these marketing tools might be free but they are also valuable. One even wonders why Google would be giving away these tools and services for free? It probably makes good business sense in the long run. By providing these free tools Google is fostering a lot of company good-will and building up the Google brand name in the process. Good PR is good business.

Every marketer and webmaster should be taking advantage of Google's good-will and snapping up these professionally run services and marketing tools. Here's a quick run-down of the 10 most valuable free Google Internet marketing tools:

1. Google Analytics

Perhaps the premier marketing tool offered by Google. It will prove helpful to both the marketer and the webmaster. Google Analytics gives you a daily snapshot of your web site. Google Analytics analyzes your traffic, where it comes from and what it does once it enters your site. You can monitor up to three sites for free.

Google Analytics is extremely valuable in analyzing your marketing funnel. It tracks all the steps leading up to your sales or checkout page. Vital information for raising your conversion rate and ROI.

You may be placed on a waiting líst for this highly in demand service from Google.

2. Google Sitemaps

Webmasters can use Google Sitemaps to almost instantly place newly created pages on their site into the Google Search Index. This is a XML file that is uploaded to Google as new pages are added on your site. Needless to say this can be a valuable service for any webmaster or marketer who wants to get their information on the web quickly.

3. Google Alerts

Be notified when someone or another site lists your site or mentions your name. Great way to keep track of all your online activities. Great way to monitor all your online business interests and products.

4. Google Froogle

Froogle is Google's price directory! It simply lists all the cheapest prices for different products on the web. For marketers and webmasters who are promoting products, it should be studied and analyzed. Optimizing your site's content for Froogle may prove to be very beneficial.

Follow Froogle or Google directions exactly on how to líst or display products on your site. Froogle will spider your site and display your prices and products to thousands of targeted customers. That, as they say, is priceless.

5. Google Checkout

Not exactly free but for those marketers who use AdWords - for every $1 spent on AdWords you can process $10 for free. You can also place the shopping cart logo on your AdWords ad and take advantage of the prestige and trust the Google brand name has built up.

Over time marketers may find this tool to be very effective and valuable.

6. Google eBlogger

Blogging has become vitally important to the health and functioning of your web site. No site should be without at least one blog and RSS feed. Creating a blog (online journal) on the topic of your web site or product will bring in extra traffic and targeted customers. eBlogger is a simple free blogging service that even lets you publish or post your blog files to your web site server. Keep in mind, each blog has that all important Google Blog Search bar.

7. Google Toolbar - Enterprise Version

Try the new enterprise version of the Google Toolbar for your company or business. Integrates countless features with all your employees or corporate network. These could include a common customer database, company calendar, financial news...

Keep in mind, Google also ranks every page it indexes on a scale of 0-10. While it is important to know the Page Rank of your pages, it is even more important to know the PR of your competitor's pages. You can use the toolbar to get the PR of each page you're visiting. Extremely helpful information for webmasters and marketers to know when forming online linking or business arrangements.

8. Google Groups

Every marketer knows the important of having a large contact líst of people with a similar interest. Social networking will play an ever increasing role in your success on the web. Just look at the growing popularity of sites like MySpace and LiveJournal.

Google groups is another form of social and business networking that every marketer should be aware of and pursuing.

9. Google Adsense

One simple way to monetize your web content is to use Google Adsense. Just place the Adsense code on your site and receive a check from Google each month. For webmasters who are not really into onlíne marketing (do such creatures exist?) Adsense can be a painless way to earn extra íncome from your site.

For professional marketers, using the Adsense system can supply a tremendous amount of marketing information on the keywords in their particular niche. It keeps the marketer informed on what keywords are being bid on and how much advertisers are willing to pay.

Adsense also has an excellent real-time tracking system you can use to keep track of all your important web pages.

10. Google Docs

A recent addition to Google's stable of free products. Google Docs (Writely.com) is a full featured online writing editor with spellcheck and great collaborating features. It also lets you publish your content directly to your blogs. One feature that may be of interest to marketers, is that it lets you save files in the popular download format of PDF.

Let's face it, until video takes over the web in four or five years time - the written word is still king on the net. It is the medium that markets, promotes and sells your content or products. Writely will help you write better.

Honorable Mention - Google Trends

This Google program will let you search popular trends, important for marketers searching for the latest hot product to promote. You can also break down these trends by different regions.

Final Note

Please take note that signing up for a Google account will usually help you in obtaining most of these free services or programs. Some of these programs may have to be applied for individually. But be assured, all these free Google marketing tools are well worth your time and effort. They will make your marketing easier and they will help any webmaster or marketer run their online business more efficiently.

About The Author
The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous websites. For the latest web marketing tools try: BizwareMagic.com . If you liked the SEO tips above, why not try this Free 7 Day Traffic Course .
2008 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.